Ozzy Osbourne, advice columnist, comes to O.C.

As an advice columnist, rock legend Ozzy Osbourne is Dear Abby with more fart jokes, or Ann Landers if Ann decided to tell readers about that time she dropped acid and ended up deep in conversation with a cow.

“It's a spinoff from my I Am Ozzy book, you see,” he says, referring to his recent memoir, when he comes on the phone from his home in Los Angeles. “Because what happened is, part of that book, I list all the drugs I had in my lifetime. And then the Times newspaper in London, which is a very sophisticated newspaper, they were doing this thing, genomics, where it maps out your blood and tells you what you're allergic too, your family history, whatever people are in your bloodline.”

That it might also unravel one of the great mysteries of rock 'n' roll – to wit, how a bloke like Ozzy, who before he cleaned up and got sober was famed for surviving prodigious amounts of booze and drugs – was another part of the appeal, of course. And based on that, the Sunday Times offered him the gig of Dr. Ozzy, advice columnist.

“There's a disclaimer that I'm not medically trained,” Ozzy says. “I don't go, ‘Take four aspirins and go to bed.' Basically it was common sense. Because of my lifestyle if I haven't experienced a lot of these things I'll probably know someone who has.”

And as funny as the book can be, it's often actually good advice, with many answers sharing Ozzy's opinions, but then referring the questioner to consult with their doctor to find out for sure.

“They always expect that it's Ozzy, so I'm going to say take aspirin and a joint, or take aspirin and listen to Black Sabbath backwards, which I'm not going to do,” he says of the obligation he feels not to mislead people who read the column or book. “They all think I'm (bleepin') mad anyway, so if they ask, ‘I've got this pimple on my (body part), what should I do?' they expect me to say, ‘Have it tattooed.' I'm not going to say that, though."

Some questions are serious, some less so, and some just offer themselves up for a joke from the light-hearted Prince of Darkness.

“A guy wrote in and said: ‘My sex life's taken a turn for the worse. My wife and I enjoyed sex up to six days a week for many, many years. Now it's dropped down to four times a week. I'm concerned she's gone off me. I'm 64 years old.'

“I wrote back, ‘Don't (bleepin') complain,” Ozzy says.

The columns have proven popular, with Rolling Stone running them occasionally as well. In the book, they're fleshed out with chapter introductions in which Ozzy shares anecdotes from his life as well as quizzes and info boxes about health and medical factoids and oddities.

“It's kind of like a humorous book you read when you're sitting on the can,” Ozzy says matter-of-factly. “It's a light-hearted thing.”

While it's the book tour that brings him to Huntington Beach, he's also happy to talk about God Bless Ozzy Osbourne, the documentary on his life co-produced by his son Jack Osbourne, which played theaters briefly a month or so ago and comes out on DVD in November.

Jack Osbourne is more comfortable behind the camera – though he played his part on the MTV reality TV series The Osbournes – and after starting a production company one day came to his dad with a proposal to do a film on his life.

“I says, ‘Whatever you want to do, but don't make me something I'm not,'” Ozzy says. “ ‘Don't make me look like the sun shines out of my (rear end).' I've seen this kind of things where it's all, ‘Oh, poor guy, he had such a hard life.' I've had a charmed life and the bad stuff is all my doing.

“Don't make me look like sugar when I'm (dirt),” he says was his bottom-line wish for Jack's movie. But even so, there were parts that were hard for him to watch when it premiered, he says, especially some of the bad behavior that showed how badly he'd behaved, and what a poor father he'd been in the past.

“Some of it was cringing because it's truth, and when you're watching with a bunch of other people, you do tend to go, ‘(Bleep),' you know?” Ozzy says. “But that's what it's all about. I've been honest about what I've been up to.”

The quality of the film – which has earned good reviews from everyone from film critics to the woman behind Ozzy in line at the airport not long ago – makes him proud as can be for his son.

“I'm proud of him,” Ozzy says. “He's a good kid, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke, he doesn't do any drugs anymore.”

And neither does Ozzy, which leaves him at peace at the age of 62, no longer restlessly seeking self-destructive cures to the kinds of problems Dr. Ozzy now handles.

It also leaves him able to get his driver's license for the first time in his life – no longer too wasted to risk it – a fact that makes him sound almost like a 16-year-old just getting behind the wheel when he talks about it.

“It was freedom,” he says of how it felt to drive himself alone for the first time. “I got a Ferrari but I don't go very far. Around here there's paparazzi, you attract them swarms of (bleepin') cameramen, you know. They're like (bleepin') gangsters.”

Ozzy Osbourne will sign copies of Trust Me, I'm Dr. Ozzy at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 11 at Barnes & Noble in the Bella Terra shopping center, 7881 Edinger Ave, Huntington Beach. Wristbands will be handed out starting at 9 a.m. You must have a copy of the book purchased at Barnes & Noble to get one.

User Agreement

Keep it civil and stay on topic. No profanity, vulgarity, racial
slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about
tragedies will be blocked. By posting your comment, you agree to
allow Orange County Register Communications, Inc. the right to
republish your name and comment in additional Register publications
without any notification or payment.